WL 12A team wins state tournament

The West Linn Tidings, Jul 22, 2010

SUBMITTED PHOTO

West Linn’s 12A baseball team celebrates with a dogpile after winning the Cal Ripken Northern Oregon State Tournament. The team will now try to take home the Pacific Northwest Regional title.

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West Linn’s 12A baseball team captured the Cal Ripken Northern Oregon State Tournament in Newberg on Sunday, whitewashing Tualatin Hills 13-3 in a championship game that lasted just four innings.

West Linn, which improved to 32-3-2 on the season, outscored its six opponents by a combined 86-17 over the three-day tournament. It will travel to Eugene for the Pacific Northwest Regional Championships, which begin on July 29.

Chase Cosner’s bases-loaded, two-out, two-strike single to center plated the final two runs in the championship game against Tualatin Hills, a select all-star team training at Mound Time Baseball, with players from all over the Portland Metro area.

The win was West Linn’s third of the tournament against Tualatin Hills, which played only the minimum number of games permitted to qualify for a Cal Ripken charter. In a pool play game Saturday morning, homers from Daniel Ferrario and Brooks Debisschop staked the Lions to an early lead. Debisschop and Grant McDonald added run-scoring singles in the fourth and Koby Pearson’s three-run double capped a seven-run rally, erasing a 5-2 deficit, in West Linn’s 14-7 victory.

In the winner’s bracket final, West Linn used back-to-back doubles from Brayden Pene and Tim Tawa and Will Mathiessen’s two-run shot off the scoreboard as part of a 10-run first-inning uprising en route to a 15-2 mercy-rule win. Tawa finished the game with three doubles in as many trips and four RBIs and Ferrario and Mathiessen were solid on the mound.

After Tualatin Hills held off Dallas, 16-15, in the loser’s bracket final, the Mound Time team put one on the board against the hard-throwing Ferrario in the top of the first. West Linn answered with a nine-spot in the bottom of the frame.

Pene set the table once again with a leadoff double. Run scoring hits from Cosner, Pearson, Tate Hoffman and McDonald highlighted the inning. Pene slammed a solo homer in the third and Ferrario was unflappable on the bump in the win.

West Linn opened the tournament Friday evening with a 10-0 shutout of Dallas. Cosner threw a strong four innings for the Lions, while Ferrario starred behind the plate, with two assists, and at the dish, going three-for-three, including a walk-off three-run homer.

West Linn’s other two wins came against Newberg. Debisschop threw two strong innings in a 17-3 pool play win over the host team. Matthiessen and Tawa combined for three homers and 12 RBIs and Brett Hazel contributed three assists and one put out from his catcher’s position in the Lions’ 17-2 win to open bracket play.